Richard Holbrooke, the American architect of the Dayton Accord that brought to an end the war in Bosnia, has branded members of the leading Bosnian Serb party in the country ‘Nazis’. In comments published today in Dnevni Avaz, the former US ambassador to the United Nations called for the abolition of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), the nationalist Bosnian Serb party formerly led by indicted war criminal Radovan Karadžić. The SDS currently shares Bosnia-Herzegovina’s rotating presidency after nationalist parties scored well overall in elections in October last year.

Holbrooke, who visited Sarajevo yesterday and is due to arrive in Belgrade today, described the SDS as morally, financially and politically corrupt. ‘They are Nazis who should disappear’, he added. He praised Bosnia’s former president Alija Izetbegović and claimed that the country could not have existed without him. Izetbegović led the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) Party of Democratic Action until he retired from politics in October 2000. Holbrooke visited him in hospital, where he has been since early last month after suffering a fall.

The ex-ambassador was accompanied by European Parliament member and former United Nations governor in Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner.